


bargain to be made

by bijou (mar_b)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Almost Kiss, Day 2: Ocean|Rain, EmetWoL Week (Final Fantasy XIV), F/M, Mostly flirting and exposition but just as like, Oh ~ when they were young uwu, Unresolved Romantic Tension, emotional cheating....kinda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26489203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mar_b/pseuds/bijou
Summary: He doesn’t say “Azem is back in Amaurot” or “Azem wants to meet”, because that would invite more questions than he’d like to answer. And it almost makes him feel guilty.Almost.
Relationships: Azem/Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	bargain to be made

“ _ Meet me at the Words of Mitron.” _

The missive reads and a certain annoyance prickles Emet-Selch’s insides at the summons. He doesn’t need a signature for who it’s from, he can discern that from the scrawl of the letters alone. His roommate asks what it’s about and he only offers “Convocation business”. He doesn’t say “Azem is back in Amaurot” or “Azem wants to meet”, because that would invite more questions than he’d like to answer. And it almost makes him feel guilty. 

_ Almost. _

He leaves his home, without another word and with his freshly minted blood-red mask, into a gloomy cityscape from the rain currently falling down on Amaurot. 

This rain is a comfort. 

When it falls heavily, it drowns out the noises of the Steam to create a symphony of the star’s creation. Even when it deigns to fall lightly, it plays its own tune on the palm of his hand or on the hard surfaces of thoroughfares. The downpour grants him a cover by way of the umbrella. Not many acknowledge him, as walkways through Amaurot are sparse on days like today and open to enjoy the afternoon rain with a stroll through the boroughs. He could almost thank Azem for giving him a reason to get out. 

Akademia Anyder is silent upon entry. It appears, Emet-Selch realizes, no lectures or exhibitions were scheduled for today. It’s a rarity to see it so abandoned except for the stray caretakers walking about. What a gift, he muses. Hardly ever given the opportunity to admire the architecture in its entirety: the tall, yawning archways - accented with gold, ceilings just as high. Something he’d never done as a student.

A blue hue paints the unique floor design and alcoves of decorated exhibits as he approaches the Words of Mitron. He can smell the pools containing fascinating sea creatures, newly created and those millenia old. He walks past aquariums as tall as the Capitol, he reckons, containing aquatic creatures of spectacular size. He finds it peculiar he’s never come back here to admire this; ichthyology not being his strongest area gives him no excuse. Emet-Selch decides he should change that soon. But other than today, his duties hardly bring him here, to his own Words of Emet-Selch - not when he has no reason to come here, not with Hythlodaeus as his chief to take care of the education of the smaller ones for him. 

Which reminds him why he’s here in the first place.

Emet-Selch looks around and concentrates on locating his colleague. The larger specimens in captivity respond with echoing and haunting calls from inside their tanks, as if responding to his aether reaching out for Azem’s. In the room with a few open-topped tanks, he feels her presence, albeit diluted, like someone or something was smothering it. Smothering her. He remains silent and still, straining his ears to aid his aetherial pinpointing. 

A slight worry chills him at the thought that she finally might have done it and gotten herself killed by slipping and being devoured. When he tries to reach her again, the call rings a little louder and more melodic. His eyes dart from one glass wall to another in search of a sign or clue. 

Suddenly, a creature with eyes as strikingly blue as the sea and larger than him by a hundredfold gaze at him steadily, following his movements. He takes a cautious step closer and it’s focused on him. He feels her aether without even trying now. His bare hand touches the glass. “Azem?”

“Yes?” 

Emet-Selch bristles from the answer, except it comes from his rear unexpectedly. He turns around and frowns. Azem is standing with a levity around her, hands behind her back, biting her bottom lip to hold back - what he can only assume is a smile or laughter - and… dripping wet. Droplets fall to the floor, darkening the solid gray stone and pooling around her bare feet. Her long brown hair sticks to her tanned skin as does the camise and pants she wears - without a mask, something he’s grown used to with her. 

It hardly bothers him, he thinks, it doesn’t bother him at all. 

She lifts her eyebrows, leaning towards one side to peek behind him, and nods. “I see you’ve made a new friend.” 

He grimaces, looking behind him briefly. “Yes, we’re getting together for tea time later,” Emet-Selch responds. He crosses his arms to look down at her and swats the air as if to derail the continuation of sarcasm. “Nevermind that, why are you drenched?” 

Azem moves closer to the glass tank; the creature hasn’t looked away except its focus is Azem not himself. “I was swimming with Aspi, of course.” She touches the container gingerly with her index finger knuckle. “I brought her back with me and she doesn’t like being away from open water yet.” 

“You named it?” he asks incredulously. 

She tilts her head toward him to answer. “Aspidochelone. You can see it from here, but her back is scaled with these giant plates-” she emphasizes with her hands as if it’s to scale -“There is no outer shell like typical turtles and she’s the only one of her kind.” 

He snaps his fingers to immediately render her person dry. “Thank you,” she says curtly.

“Was she brought forth from unregistered creation magicks?” 

Azem shakes her head. “I don’t believe so. Her back looks like a moving island and it was scaring the locals into-”

Emet-Selch finishes her thought. “Manifesting unregistered magicks.” 

“Mm-hm.” Her whole palm rests on the glass now. “She came from the deeper depths of the ocean. She’s just alone.” 

He almost touches her shoulder, seeing her empathic ability reflect the pain of solitude in her brown eyes. Instead he brings it back to his side, opting for something expected from his character. “That’s very sentimental, Azem. I’m sure Mitron is ecstatic for another anomaly to research.” 

“Oh, he doesn’t know about Aspi yet.” She looks at him now with a glint of mischief, tapping her mouth with an index finger. “It’s our secret for now.” 

Emet-Selch nearly knocks the mask off his face as his palm hits his forehead. “Please, I ask that you don’t involve me like this. We don’t know if this creature is dangerous. Perhaps it’s evolution demanded the dissolution of its kind.” 

She scoffs and acknowledges half his complaint. “She’s not dangerous, I’ve already said so.” 

“Just because you’ve given it a moniker, Azem-” 

In her typical, fearless fashion, she uses aether to run up the wall of the tank and dives in with the sea creature. At first, he watches with awe as she swims toward it, loose brown hair flowing behind her, ever present light on her face. It yawps, opening his mouth wide as if it’s sucking her own to devour her while Azem on a direct course to disappear down its throat. 

Unbidden dread has him pounding on the glass. “Azem. Azem, it-!” He stops because she lands what can only be described as a beak, similar to a turtle’s. Her limbs are splayed on the surface of it. Now he feels foolish, for his spectacle and for not trusting her. 

She smiles at him from beyond the glass. “My, my. What’s the matter, Emet-Selch? I’ve never seen you that worried for anyone in my life.” She laughs in the water as he scowls, bringing his hand back to his side. The aether from the enclosure suddenly grabs his attention: this warmth he senses in the water is not unlike her. This creature - Aspidochelone has opened itself to Azem completely. Original life outside of sentients like himself and Azem hardly have aether or the capacity to accept it to bond, but inexplicably, this one can. “I knew if I tried to explain it to you, you’d argue with me - so I rather just show you,” she says nuzzling her cheek on Aspi.

“Remarkable,” he whispers to himself. 

“I’ll be back later, all right?” She comforts her, almost as if singing it. Aspidochelone’s head moves as nodding, but it acts as a catapult for Azem as the fastest way out of the water, landing next time as he found her: sopping wet. 

Sighing, he snaps for her comfort. She thanks him with a genuine smile. With a facade of disinterest, he asks, “Did you only summon me here to show me this?” 

Azem pouts her lip a little, crossing her arms and shifting her weight. “ _ I _ would’ve been honored to see something so majestically unique.” She smacks his arm lightly. “You felt it too.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I have to admit the reception to your aether is… honestly something I can’t say I’ve seen.” 

Just like that, the flip switches and her chin is held up high, chest puffed with her small victory. “I thank you,” she says theatrically with a low bow. “Actually. I know it’s been a few months since you accepted the seat of Emet-Selch and I haven’t been able to properly congratulate you outside of a professional capacity.” She turns about-face towards the exit. 

“No other congratulations are required-” he begins to say, but he puts two and two together as he sees Azem slip from the puddles of water on the ground from the corner of his eyes. Her flailing arm hooks onto his for purchase but the force and inertia from it doesn’t give him much time to react. It pivots his body and sends him stumbling toward the ground with her. Emet-Selch ends up hovering over her; arms at either side of her head - on his knees with her legs in between. His silver hair flows out from his cowl. She is effectively caged under him. 

Azem chuckles nervously. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to stare.” 

“Stare?” Fingers touch his cheeks and his mask is gone from his face. 

“It’s been awhile since I’ve seen your eyes.” She says and he thinks he hears adoration in it, but he rather not trouble himself with those thoughts. “I almost forgot how beautiful they were, Hades.” Emet-Selch looks at her softened eyes and cannot deny the roaring in his ears. Soon after, the realization hits that she’s the one touching his cheek and she reels her hand back as if they both have the epiphany at the same time. 

“I believe you might’ve hit your head too hard.” She exhales, looking away, with a slight blush coloring her cheeks. He lifts himself off her, offering a hand to help her stand. She latches onto his forearm but the bulk of his robes provide a poor handle for her on an already slippery terrain for bare feet. 

Azem loses her footing again, but this time, he’s wary enough to catch her. She’s being humorously clumsy. He is on the verge to tell her so when it suddenly dies in his throat. They freeze in this moment as there is no distance between them: her gripping his robes for dear life and him holding her close. Emet-Selch feels the signature heat of her soul that he can’t sense on anyone else, pressing up against his chest as his arm that holds her steady. For a moment, everything is uniquely silent. She doesn’t move and neither does he as if this proximity was meant to be - in the aetherial sense.

Emet-Selch looks down at her and barely glances to her lips, for not even half a breath, and Azem gasps softly. 

“You should not kiss me, Emet-Selch,” she warns, though she sees her eyes flicker to his mouth too - as if she’s read his thoughts before he’s made them. “The wise members of the Convocation would disapprove if two of their ranks acted…” she takes a shuddered breath. “Unwisely.” 

But now the thought has taken root and he can think of nothing else. What she’s voiced, he realizes suddenly, is an admission itself and his heart beats faster for it. He finds his voice: “You caution me, but you betray yourself, as if the idea has crossed your mind already.”

She swallows, blush creeping from underneath her mask, and clutches the front of his robe.  _ “You _ are the one holding me, inching closer to me,” she says breathlessly. 

“There’s a warmth to your soul,” he admits, unbidden.

“And a beautiful vibrance to yours.” 

Their lips are close enough to feel each other’s heat. As with his sorcerer’s form, feeling one with the Underworld’s flow, his connection to the lifestream has the selfsame sensation with her this close. He need only move by the slightest amount to kiss her. He allows himself to admit that he wants to - truly and urgently wants to. And  _ he _ knows she feels the same with the yearn in her eyes, in her aether.

“Hades.” His name is scarcely above a whisper. “Your Persephone will be worried for you.” 

The name of his partner injects ice into his veins and he releases Azem with a few cursory steps back. He clears his throat. “Forgive me.” 

She waves a hand in between them. “Don’t worry about it,” she says lightly with a smile that doesn’t quite reach her face - as if the tantalizing embrace mere moments ago still tingling his skin was wiped from memory. Her form is less comfortable and now rigid, no longer fluid. She’s trying to shut this out as much as he is. 

Azem picks up his mask and hands it to him. “It never happened,” she says to him, slow and careful. He shakes his head, agreeing. 

He places it wordlessly on his face.

“Congratulations again, honorable Emet-Selch.” Azem offers, rubbing her arm and avoiding his eyes. “Let me walk you out.” 

They are quiet as he walks back out into the rain. 

**Author's Note:**

> ay look at me being late for emetwol week. who's surprised by it? not me  
> also heres the bookclub! https://discord.gg/w4Vkdd7X


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